equitable

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

adj. Marked by or having equity; just and impartial. See Synonyms at fair1.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

adj. Marked by or having equity.

adj. Fair, just, or impartial.

adj. Relating to the general principles of justice that correct or supplement the provisions of the law.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

adj. Possessing or exhibiting equity; according to natural right or natural justice; marked by a due consideration for what is fair, unbiased, or impartial; just.

adj. That can be sustained or made available or effective in a court of equity, or upon principles of equity jurisprudence

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

According to the principles of equity; just and right under all the circumstances of the particular case; fair and equal: as, an equitable decision; an equitable distribution.

Pertaining to or dependent upon strict equity or justice; regarding or relating to abstract right in individual cases: applied in law to the administration of justice by courts of equity, and to the principles established and methods of procedure practised by them: as, equitable rights or remedies; equitable rules or powers. See equity.

Property belonging to the estate of a decedent by law not subject to payment of his debts in course of administration, but voluntarily charged by the testator with payment of debts generally, or upon which equity fastens a trust for that purpose.

Etymologies

(American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

From French équitable, from Old French, from equité ("equity"). (Wiktionary)

Examples

And should there be no check put to this disintegration of society, then must come what the radicals are now so anxious to obtain, the equitable adjustment -- and in that case it is a problem how far that may not be really _equitable_; for society may, by degrees, arrive to a state so anomalous as to warrant that the few should be sacrificed for the benefit of the community at large.

Divorce will become more difficult due to the taxes on alimony, while a husband will be freed of all responsibility to maintain equitable treatment of his wives if he engages in polygamy -- in Islam, polygamy is explicitly forbidden in the Quran unless the husband is capable of treating his wives in a perfectly equal fashion.

One way to be more equitable is to insure no more than $100,000 in deposits, limited to cover for someone in a 5 year period of time and pegged to their SS Number, and limited further by not allowing someone to get more than $100,000 simply by splitting their deposits among multiple institutions.

Her dreams of parenthood, apparently formed while tripping across green New Haven quadrangles on her way to feminist-theory classes, were starkly different: "I had wanted us to be a mother and a father raising children side by side, the man moving into the world of children, the woman into the world of work, in equitable balance, maybe each working flexibly from home, the two making the same world and sharing the same experiences and values."

The Tewksbury Police Department provided U.S. authorities with evidence for the case, according to a court filing, and could get as much as 80% of the proceeds from the sale of the property under a federal forfeiture program known as "equitable sharing," which pays a portion to state and local agencies that help.

Scott Brauer for The Wall Street Journal The Tewksbury Police Department provided U.S. authorities with evidence for the case, according to a court filing, and could get as much as 80% of the proceeds from sale of the property under a federal forfeiture program known as 'equitable sharing,' which pays a portion to state and local agencies that help.